Yet More Jonathan Keats

(((He’s become the BEYOND THE BEYOND house conceptual artist, if you don’t count, uh,
Rirkrit Tiravanija.)))

ARTIST CONCEIVES NEW MIRACLES FOR GODS

California Gallery Licenses Rights to Novel Spectacles

- Including Aerobatic Planetary Systems and Supernova
Pyrotechnic Displays – to Divinities and Other Arts
Patrons… Public Exhibition Opens November 15, 2007

October 17, 2007 – As science eclipses religion, and technology conjures marvels more incredible than the great flood or the parting of the Red Sea, deities have lost their exalted status in many modern societies.

Formulating new miracles at a cosmic scale for gods to license and implement, San Francisco artist Jonathon Keats offers divinities the opportunity to reestablish their traditional prestige.

“Artists create splendors every day,” says Mr. Keats, who has previously produced abstract art for extraterrestrials and pornography for houseplants.
“We earn a living making spectacles, whether by painting canvases or building monuments. Deities need our skills.”

Mr. Keats began developing new miracles for gods by researching past sources of awe. “In previous centuries, people were taken by the notion that the sun orbited the earth,” observes Mr. Keats. “The
Copernican revolution upset all that. I figured disillusionment might be avoided in the future, and wonderment enhanced, by contriving planetary systems with multiple stars in orbit, all encompassing a planet in elaborate aerobatic configurations.”

Following this inspiration, Mr. Keats has designed eight novel solar systems, each original and unique.
Rights to build them are available for licensing through San Francisco’s Modernism Gallery. The buyer is responsible for construction, and advised to hire a qualified engineer.

Mr. Keats has also conceived less permanent miracles.
“Not every deity has the option of creation ex nihilo,” he says, “and even those who do may find that the multitudes lose their enchantment with phenomena seen all the time.” To captivate even the most jaded audiences, Mr. Keats has designed a suite of supernova pyrotechnic displays, coordinating the explosion of stars in the night sky. His celestial pyrotechnics are as precisely choreographed as any Independence Day fireworks, yet blaze across the heavens for months.

“This is a universal visual experience, art that will appeal to everyone,” claims Modernism Gallery owner
Martin Muller. Given their anticipated popularity, non-exclusive rights to perform these miracles will be offered through the gallery – stars not included – for a nominal fee.

For more discerning audiences, Mr. Keats has developed subtler miracles, detectable only through scientific investigation using technologically-advanced instrumentation. Musical, these miracles are orchestrated for performance by deities on constellations of stars.

“Since stars resonate at approximately 30,000 octaves below human hearing range, and these sonatas are eons in duration, the music will reward only the most determined listeners,”
Mr. Keats explains. “But that shouldn’t be a problem.
Sophisticated societies need miracles most of all.” To demonstrate the melodic appeal of his stellar compositions, the artist has released a digital simulation of his first Sonata for Astral Organ, adjusted to audible range, through independent distributor GarageBand. In the future, he will accept commissions from deities, demigods and other interested parties.

Despite the enormous financial potential of patronage by gods, Mr. Keats’s motivations are not strictly fiscal. “I’m sympathetic to deities, who must compete to be noticed, and are constantly at risk of being debunked,” he says. “I’m also sympathetic, even more so, to the cynics amongst us who have lost their sense of wonder. Perhaps awe can be rediscovered through art.”

Download the Sonata for Astral Organ free-of-charge at http://www.garageband.com/artist/jonathonkeats/songs

* * *

“Miracle Works” opens at Modernism Gallery on November
15, 2007, with a public reception from 5:30 to 8:00
PM. The gallery is located at 685 Market Street, San
Francisco, CA 94105. The phone number is 415/541-0461.
Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 to 5:30.
* * *

Jonathon Keats is a conceptual artist, fabulist, and critic. Recently he exhibited extraterrestrial abstract artwork at the Judah L. Magnes Museum in
Berkeley. He has also applied string theory to real estate development, selling properties in the extra dimensions of space, and petitioned Berkeley to pass a fundamental law of logic – A=A – a work commissioned by the city’s annual Arts Festival. He has been awarded Yaddo and MacDowell fellowships, and his projects have been documented by KQED-TV and the BBC
World Service, as well as periodicals ranging from The
San Francisco Chronicle to New Scientist. He is represented by Modernism Gallery in San Francisco. For more information, please contact Mr. Keats at

jonathon_keats@yahoo.com, or see http://www.modernisminc.com/artists/Jonathon_KEATS/

(((Currently listening to the astral miracle music, which an 11-year-old critic pitilessly describes as “kind of obnoxious.”)))